


Snookered

by Anarfea



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: (not between Sherlock and Mycroft), Angst and Humor, Angst and Porn, Clothing Kink, First Time, First Time Bottoming, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Incest, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Object Insertion, Past Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Pool & Billiards, Porn with Feelings, Sherlock Holmes and Drug Use, Sibling Incest, Sibling Rivalry, Snooker, Sorry Not Sorry, Topping from the Bottom, billiards kink, clothed/naked kink, fanfic lube, holmescest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 21:07:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3543794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarfea/pseuds/Anarfea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft snookers Sherlock on the billiards table.  Or does Sherlock snooker Mycroft?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snookered

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fangirl_on_a_bicycle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirl_on_a_bicycle/gifts).



> For Fangirl_on_a_bicycle, who shamelessly professed her love of Holmest over dinner last 221b Con. Thank you for owning your kink, and helping me own mine.
> 
> This fic has been brought to you by the Antidiogenes Beta Army:  
> Prurient_curiosity, trickybonmot, cottonballzofdeath, Beyonces_fiancee, and DemonicSymphony.
> 
> Amazingly, with all those betas, it hasn't been Brit picked. So if you see something, say something. Thanks!
> 
> Snooker is a compelling game, in which players exhibit all the mental strategy of chess plus physical dexterity (and nice arses in fine trousers and waistcoats). I wanted to include enough technical detail to give this fic a snooker ‘flavor,' but not so much that it becomes unreadable for the non snooker-enthusiast. I hope I've struck a balance, but if you're still stymied by anything in this fic, there are a number of snooker resources in the end notes.
> 
> A note on consent in this fic. While both parties are sexually interested in each other, there is some taking of liberties without obtaining verbal consent prior with the initiation foreplay. I don't think "wanting it," is a substitute for consent IRL, but, in the context of the fic I think it's clear the taking of liberties results in mutual pleasure.
> 
> There is explicit verbal consent granted before any penetrative acts take place. That said, whether incest between an older sibbling and a younger one, even when both are adults, can ever truly be consensual is itself dubious. I think most Holmescest shippers understand that, and get that the kind of relationship we imagine Sherlock and Mycroft being capable of having is not reflective of how incest usually function in real life.

**snook·er**

ˈsno͝okər/

 

_noun: snooker_

  1. a game played with cues on a billiard table in which the players use a cue ball (white) to pocket the other balls (fifteen red and six coloured) in a set order.



  * a position in a game of snooker or pool in which a player cannot make a direct shot at any permitted ball; a shot placing an opponent in such a position.
  * plural noun: snookers
  * "He needed a snooker to have a chance of winning the frame."



 

** **

 

 

 _verb: snooker_ ; 3rd person present: snookers; past tense: snookered; past participle:snookered; gerund or present participle: snookering

  1. subject (oneself or one's opponent) to a snooker.



  * US: trick, entice, or trap. "They were snookered into buying books at prices that were too high."
  * BRITISH: leave (someone) in a difficult position; thwart. "I managed to lose my car keys—that was me snookered."




 

* * *

 

 

"So this is your new place."  Sherlock surveyed what Mycroft liked to think of as his 'country home,' or what had been a country home when it had been built in the Tudor era.  It had since been swallowed by London and was actually conveniently close to both his office and the Diogenes.  The gravel crunched under their toes as Mycroft and Sherlock made their way up from the ornate wrought iron gates to the front door. "If you wanted to show everyone how desperately insecure you are in your new position, well done, you."

Mycroft ignored his brother.  He'd been prepared for such a response.  He thought of making a comment about how Sherlock had picked up the Harrow accent quickly enough once he'd gone away to school, but bit it back.

"What do Mummy and Dad say?"

"Our parents understand that the nature of my work requires that I have an impressive place to bring clients."

"I thought that's what your office and the club were for."

Mycroft remained silent.

"Unless," Sherlock mused, "the nature of your work requires you to entertain overnight guests.  Do you just hold your ankles and think of England?"

"If you would prefer the halfway house ..." Mycroft threatened.

Sherlock pulled a face.  "You don't really mean that.  We both know I'd either run off straight away, or else sabotage the sobriety of everyone at the facility."

" _Touché_.  I suppose your only option apart from me is prison, then."

"With an eight o'clock curfew, I'm not convinced this is going to be much different."

"The food is better."

Sherlock looked him up and down with the superior expression he always wore when calculating Mycroft's weight to the ounce.

"Of that, brother mine, I've no doubt."

 

* * *

 

 

"Bored!" Sherlock announced.

Mycroft looked over his newspaper at Sherlock, who lay sprawled in a wing-backed chair across from him with his legs outstretched, staring at the ceiling.  He'd decided to work from home, at least for a few days, so that he could make sure Sherlock didn't tear the house apart.  As much as possible, he'd tried to keep his brother in his sights.

"There's a library across the hall."

Sherlock sniffed.  "Full of Edmund Burke and Niall Ferguson, no doubt.  Do you have any games?"

"No Cluedo or Operation, I'm afraid.  I have chess."

"Dull."

"Go."

"Dull."

"Cards."

"Only if we're playing for money."

Mycroft folded his paper with a snap.  "Not on your life."

Sherlock tucked his legs under him and crouched atop the leather chair, bouncing on the balls of his feet and banging his head against the high leather back.  "Bo-ored."

Mycroft tried to remind himself that Sherlock's presence in his home was temporary.  With any luck, he'd be back at Cambridge in a few months.  "There's a billiards room downstairs."

Sherlock stopped bouncing.  "Alright.  But no billiards.  I'd sooner chew my fingers off than play billiards."

"That's because you haven't the skill for it.  You always were a potter, not a player, Sherlock."  His brother was aggressive and athletic, and good at getting the ball in the pocket if he had a straight shot, but gave little thought to positional play or long term strategy.

"There's a pool table as well.  We can play eight ball, if you just want to bash around."

Sherlock's eyes widened in indignation.  "Snooker."

Mycroft arched an eyebrow.  He preferred billiards, himself, but played snooker at the Diogenes on occasion.  "I thought you disliked snooker."

Sherlock shrugged.  "I played some while I was at Harrow."

Mycroft set his paper aside.  "I suppose we can play a match then, if you've improved."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed.  "I hope you don't have to make any shots from the middle of the table, Mycroft.  You're going to tear your trousers if you have to climb up on it."

Mycroft frowned.  "My trousers fit fine."

"Because you've had them let out.  And they're still too small in the waist."

"I'm at the lowest weight I've been in a decade, Sherlock."

"You are not.  You were, before Christmas, but you've been stress-eating since the promotion."

As usual his brother picked up on the minutia but missed the larger picture.  Mycroft had, in fact, been stress-eating--since he'd found Sherlock, finally desperate enough to text him, lying on a bare, filthy mattress in a rat-infested flat, high out of his mind and feverish from cellulitis originating at the crook of his elbow.

It was hard to believe that the Sherlock before him, who bounded out of his chair like a broken spring, thrumming like a florescent bulb, was the same person as the semi-conscious waif he'd carried from a building he'd later ordered condemned.

"I'll meet you downstairs," Sherlock called, practically skipping from the room.

Mycroft stared after him, remembering the sick warmth of Sherlock's body in his arms on the cab ride to A&E, the silent tears that had leaked from his eyes onto Mycroft's jacket.  He leaned back in his chair, waiting until the thickness at the back of his throat dissolved before rejoining his brother.

 

* * *

 

 

He found Sherlock seated in one of the chairs against the wall of the billiards room, with a snifter of brandy in one hand, and Mycroft's one-piece, hand-spliced ebony and ash cue in the other.

Mycroft put his hand out.  "That would be mine."

Sherlock sniffed and handed it over, then took a sip of brandy before heading over to browse the cue racks.

Mycroft wondered whether he oughtn't have put away all of the liquor in advance of Sherlock's stay.  It seemed to be the done thing, but he hadn't known his brother to have issues with alcohol.  He found himself wondering if any of the usually recommended practices for dealing with addicts truly applied to Sherlock.  Certainly he'd driven off every therapist they'd sent him to in rehab.

Sherlock returned with a three quarter jointed Britannia cue.  Not quite as nice as Mycroft's, which was signed and numbered by the artisan who had crafted it, but acceptable even by the standards of his more discerning guests.  He set himself to opening the metal cases of snooker balls while Sherlock stashed the cue's extensions under the table and chalked the tip.  Mycroft did the same, and also stowed his favorite rests: a cross rake, a bridge, and a swan, just in case.  It wasn't that he couldn't climb up on the table.  But rests made shooting from mid-table so much easier, and if Sherlock still thought himself above using them and relied solely on extensions, then Mycroft was at that much greater an advantage.

"Shall we lag off for the break?"  Sherlock asked.

Mycroft shrugged as he racked up the reds.  "You go ahead.  You'll need all the advantage you can get."

"Suit yourself," Sherlock muttered, and placed the colours on their spots on the cue ball in the D behind the baulk line.  He was already bending over the table and rehearsing his stroke as Mycroft lifted the rack off the baize.

He broke quickly, and too hard, opening up the red pyramid and nudging the pink down the table, and failing to get the cue ball safe behind one of the baulk colours.

"Well, that was sloppy," Mycroft observed, setting down his brandy and crossing to the foot of the table.

Sherlock stared at the backs of his left hand, splaying his fingers.  "My cue is sticky."

"I think the real problem was that you got impatient, but there's polish in the cabinet between the racks if you want it."

Sherlock opened the door with a bang, making a mess of the polishing cloths before retrieving a white bottle.  Mycroft was glad he didn't keep talc; Sherlock would have dumped it everywhere.

"‘Q-slick Shaft Polish.'"  Sherlock snickered at the label.  "Who names these things?"

Mycroft rolled his eyes.  "How is it you've managed to reach the age of majority and yet remain perpetually puerile?"

Sherlock poured polish onto a piece of leather and ran it up and down the length of the shaft.  Mycroft looked away and leaned over the table, trying to focus on his shot rather than on Sherlock's fingers.

He wasn't sure when the boy who'd induced adoration and frustration in equal measure had become a man he never knew if he wanted to kiss or throttle, but the difference in his mind was one of degree rather than kind.  It wasn't as though it had happened all at once.  In a way, it still hadn't happened completely.  His brother was like a transparent matryoshka doll; each of the Sherlocks he had come to know nested inside another, and they sometimes shone through each other in disconcerting ways.  Sherlock was simultaneously the pubescent boy leering at a bottle of Q-slick and the coquettish young man making suggestive gestures with a snooker cue--if that _was_ what he was doing.  If it had been anyone else, Mycroft would have been certain it was innuendo, but this was his brother, and although he sometimes believed Sherlock lived to torment him, playing on the sentiments that Mycroft had never, would never express was surely a step too far, even for him.

He pushed these thoughts from his mind, refusing to let Sherlock break his concentration, leaning forward and focusing on the white ball and the long stretch of baize between it and the rightmost red, aiming through the wide opening Sherlock had left him behind the yellow.  He executed the long pot perfectly.

"One," he called, the note of triumph in his voice less about the single point he had posted and more about the way the ball struck the head cushion with enough force that it bounced off, rebounded off the side cushions, and was now returning back behind the baulk line.  It settled in almost in the same position in which he'd started.

He easily potted the yellow, moving the cue ball up to the center of the table, and paused to retrieve the yellow and return it to its spot.

"Three."

He then executed an approximate mirror image to his opener, potting another red in the opposite corner and rebounding the cue ball back up to where it had started to get on the blue.

"Four."

The blue was child's play, a straight shot into a side pocket.

"Nine."

He retrieved and replaced the blue, then potted another one of the easy, open reds Sherlock had developed for him.

"Ten."

He potted the pink next, continuing to move up the table.

"Sixteen."

He retrieved the pink, but couldn't return it to its spot, which was now occupied by the disturbed reds.  He set it as close as he was able, below the remains of the pyramid.

Sherlock got up out of his chair to peer at it, and made a great show of nudging it with his finger fractionally to the left.  Mycroft sighed and leaned back on his heels, humoring him.  He'd achieved his goal at this point, which was to position himself so he could alternately pot reds and the black.  While he doubted he was going to be able to clear the table in one visit, he was confident he could post a high break.

He potted a red.

"Seventeen."

The black.

"Twenty-four."

The last free red.

"Twenty-five."

Then he hit the black at an angle, simultaneously potting it and cannoning open the remains of the red pyramid.

"Thirty-two," he gloated, unable to keep his pleasure off his face.  He stole a glance across the room at Sherlock to observe his reaction while he returned the black to its spot.

Sherlock camouflaged his sneer by sipping his brandy.

Mycroft moved up on the cue ball and attempted a bank shot on one of the freed reds, but it struck the cushion just below the side pocket and then bounced off the opposite cushion to roll to a stop in the middle of the table.

"Thirty-two, nil." Mycroft reiterated, returning to his own chair on the other side of the table.

Sherlock set his glass down on the side table with a clack and picked up his cue, returning to the table to survey his options.  After looking at the remaining reds from several angles and giving the broken pack a derisive sniff, he hit a red sitting along the side cushion at an angle and knocked the yellow towards its corner pocket.  The shot was a little on the thick side, and for a split second, Mycroft thought the yellow would drop into the corner pocket.  But it rattled a bit in the jaws and then came to rest.  The red drifted up just in front of it.  The cue ball hardly moved, remaining in the same, poor position.

Mycroft raised his eyebrows.  He had not anticipated that his brother would play the safety.  The Sherlock he remembered played offensively to a fault.  He'd expected him to at least attempt to put points of his own on the board on his first visit.

Sherlock shrugged and cocked his head towards the table.

If his brother wanted a safety match, Mycroft was more than capable of playing one.  He mirrored Sherlock's prior move, knocking a red into the green and tying up the opposite corner pocket.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but smiled in bemusement and grudging admiration.

He returned to the table and played safety again.  Mycroft reciprocated, and they fell into a slow, deliberate dance, trading safety shots and gradually knocking reds from the top to the bottom of the table, where the yellow and green blocked the most convenient pockets.  More than five minutes and eight visits elapsed where neither of them attempted to score.  It was Mycroft's favorite kind of snooker, tactical and patient, and not at all the style of play he'd expected from his brother.  Sherlock remained focused and confident, pursing his lips and chalking his cue between shots, not even bothering to taunt Mycroft.

"You actually have improved," Mycroft mused after Sherlock executed a particularly deft safety, tucking the cue ball up above the blue.

Sherlock scowled, but said nothing.

Mycroft eyed the white ball in the middle of the table and opted to use the cross rake rather than climb up on top of the table to reach it.  He set the cue into the rest and tapped a red up behind the brown, which had remained on its spot throughout the frame.

"I told you your trousers were too tight," Sherlock quipped.

Mycroft sighed.  He hadn't really expected Sherlock's newfound maturity to last.

Sherlock's run of well-played safeties ran out as well.  Mycroft noticed an opening behind the blue towards the cluster of four reds that were all that remained of the initial pyramid.  It was a long pot, but he thought he might be able to tap the rightmost one into the corner pocket.  He walked around the table to be sure.  Definitely possible, but difficult.  He chalked his cue and returned to the other side.

He got the angle wrong and fouled; the red bounced off the head rail and the cue ball rolled into the corner pocket.

Sherlock chuckled, rising out of his seat.  "Ta for that," he said, fishing the white ball out and carrying it with him back to the baulk line.  "Four points to me."  If it bothered him that his only four points so far were the ones Mycroft had posted for him, he didn't show it.

Sherlock peered at the table, pausing to brush his curls out of his eyes.  Mycroft would never understand why his brother didn't simply cut his hair, but then, Sherlock had always been a vain creature.  Sherlock placed the white behind the brown, taking aim at a red in a straight line for the side pocket.  An easy pot, now that he could place the ball anywhere he liked inside the D.  

Sherlock made the shot readily.

"One."

He picked up the cross rake to steady his cue to take a shot at the green, still blocking the jaws of its corner pocket.  Mycroft couldn't help but eye the decadent curve of his brother's arched lower back and pert arse as he made the shot.  He blamed the brandy.

"Four."

Sherlock returned the green to its spot and potted a red into the same pocket.  The cue ball rebounded to place it perfectly on the blue.

"Five."

Sherlock chalked his cue, a grim, focused expression on his face, and hit the blue at an angle, sending the cue ball up the table towards the remaining reds and the blue into the side pocket.

"Ten."

He paused to replace the blue, then cannoned open the reds and potted one in the top corner.  The white rolled up onto the pink.  Sherlock had the cue ball on a string, now.  His positional play was much improved since they'd last played.

"Twelve."

The pink.

"Seventeen."

Red.

"Eighteen."

Pink.

"Twenty-four."

Red.

"Twenty-five."

Black.

"Thirty-two."

And the four points he'd given Sherlock on the foul made thirty-six, officially putting him ahead of Mycroft for the first time in the frame.  The pleasure of watching Sherlock's form--both his technique and physique--more than made up for any chagrin Mycroft felt at falling behind.

Swagger infused Sherlock's step as he pulled out an extension from under the table.  He brought out the cross rake again and potted one of the reds they'd left at the foot of the table.

"Thirty-three."

The cue ball rebounded perfectly on the yellow.  Mycroft thought Sherlock might use the rest again, but he unscrewed the extension and played the shot by climbing up onto the table, his long left leg resting on top of the cushion.  Mycroft drank in the view of his brother's lush, butterfly-shaped buttocks moving beneath black wool trousers as Sherlock dropped the yellow into the pocket.

"Thirty-five."

Red.

"Thirty-six."

Brown.

"Forty."

Red.

"Forty-one."

There were no easy shots left.  Sherlock paced in circles around the table, worrying his lower lip.  Mycroft found himself fixating on the plump fullness of it, the perfect ‘v' above it.  Sherlock finally settled on the brown, and potted it and got position on one of two remaining reds.

"Forty-five."

Red.

"Forty-six."

Yellow.

"Forty-eight."

Red.

"Forty-nine."

Brown.

"Fifty-three."

Sherlock returned the brown to its spot.  He only had to run the colours and clear the table, now, but Mycroft didn't see a way for him to do it.  The green was trapped against its cushion, with all the other colours on their spots.

Sherlock potted the yellow, leaving it in the pocket.

"Fifty-five."

But Sherlock apparently shared Mycroft's opinion that there was no way to pot the green, and played safe, knocking it against the pink.

Sherlock grinned as he returned to his seat, eyes flashing.  "Fifty-nine, thirty-two."

Mycroft stood and strode towards the table.

Sherlock arched an eyebrow.  "You're twenty-seven points behind, and there are only twenty-five remaining.  The sportsmanlike thing to do would be to concede the frame."

Mycroft shrugged.  "Hardly un-winnable.  I simply require snookers."

"You think you can snooker me?"

Mycroft laughed, pretending to conceal it with a cough into his fist.  "I _know_ I can snooker you."

He went for the long pot, striking the green from all the way across the table, so hard it rattled between the jaws before dropping in.  "Three."

He aimed at the brown, next, but the white had traveled further to the left than he'd intended on the previous shot and he missed, leaving the cue ball low on the table.

"Quite the snooker," mused Sherlock, readily potting the brown.  "Four."

The blue.

"Nine."

He potted the pink, hard, rebounding the cue ball off three cushions to get position on the black.

"Fifteen."

Sherlock finished with a bank shot, aiming the white at the wall and bouncing it into the black towards the opposite corner pocket.  Sherlock was already walking away as the black rolled in, not even bothering to check to see if it dropped into the pocket or to recount the final score.

Eighty-one, thirty-five.  Mycroft knew when he was beaten.

"Do you want the opportunity to redeem yourself?"  Sherlock gloated as he sauntered to Mycroft's cub chair.  "Say, best in three?"

Mycroft shrugged.  "If you'd like."

"It's not as though there's anything else to do.  Can we keep going, or do you need a snack, first?"

Mycroft sighed.  "Rack up the reds, Sherlock.  And learn to handle victory with grace.  Didn't they teach you that at Harrow?"

Sherlock arched an eyebrow.  "I said I played snooker while I was at Harrow.  I never said I played _at_ Harrow."

"You played in London."

"Yes, in pubs, for money."

"Why am I not surprised."

He imagined that Sherlock, quite accomplished at charming and shaming people when he wanted, and really a rather decent player, could probably have made a fair amount of money by sandbagging and making bets with the unsuspecting.  Though apparently not enough to support the drug habit he acquired later, or perhaps he hadn't been able to play while high.  Mycroft had discreetly removed the crumpled notes and strip of condoms he'd found in his brother's pockets the night he'd taken him to the hospital, and never spoken of them.

He helped Sherlock by fishing the colours from the pockets and placing them on their spots as Sherlock arranged the reds inside their rack and aligned it just below the pink.

Mycroft took his time to breathe deeply and center himself, rolling his shoulders to loosen the tension before breaking, ignoring the way that Sherlock tapped his foot against the plush carpet.  He focused on keeping a perfect, flat back and dropping his elbow straight behind him, keeping the cue ball and the right corner of the pyramid in line with his dominant left eye.

It was a textbook safety break.  He loosened only three reds, and even one of those rebounded off the side cushion and back into the pyramid.  The cue ball rebounded off three cushions and kissed the green, settling flush with it and leaving no clear line towards the reds.  Sherlock was well and thoroughly snookered.

He knew it, too, chewing his lip as he approached the table.

Mycroft returned to his chair, which afforded him a view of the whole table from above the barely disturbed red pyramid, and celebrated with a self-congratulatory sip of brandy, which radiated warmth through his extremities.

Sherlock paced up and down the length of the cushion on the green side, bending over and staring over the white ball, looking for a line through the snooker.  It was a brilliant one, nigh inescapable: all possible lines to the reds required banking the cue ball off multiple cushions.  Sherlock took a deep breath as he took aim towards the side cushion furthest from the cue ball, his apparent path a near ampersand line, bouncing of four cushions into the red pack.  Mycroft wasn't entirely sure why he didn't aim towards the closer side, which was only a three-cushion escape.  He supposed his brother intended to play the shot very thin, to try to leave Mycroft in a poor position on his next visit, but the snooker was so difficult he was surprised his brother didn't go for the simplest possible escape.  Leave it to Sherlock to try to make a complicated maneuver even more difficult than was required.  Sherlock shot went into the second cushion at too shallow an angle, and when it rebounded off the third, it nearly hit the blue, coming to a stop in the center of the table.

"Foul.  And a miss," said Mycroft.  "Four to me.  Replay the shot from the previous position."

Sherlock straightened his back, shoving his hair out of his eyes.  "No one plays with the miss rule, Mycroft!"

Mycroft smirked.  "You played a more difficult shot than was required in attempt to leave me at a disadvantage and you missed."  He gestured towards the cue ball.  "That's the definition of a professional foul, Sherlock."

Sherlock pressed his lips together until they were white.  "Fine."  He took the white in hand replayed the shot.  The result was nearly identical, the white ball coming to a stop only centimeters lower on the table than before.

"And you're trying it again."  Mycroft shook his head.  "Foul.  Four to me.  Replay it."  

Sherlock replaced the cue ball and tried again, making a deliberate effort to focus his form.  His posture was perfect; waist bent at ninety degrees, weight balanced slightly more to his left foot, cue resting between his long, musicians fingers splayed against the baize.  He stroked the cue back and forth across his knuckles without contacting the ball, clearly trying to visualize the shot: off the cushion to the left of the yellow, then off the bottom one, then off the far cushion behind the green, then diagonally across and into the yellow cushion again, then into the red pack.  Mycroft didn't envy him at all.

He hit the white ball along the correct trajectory this time, but not hard enough.  Sherlock could see it slowing, tapping his fingers on the baize in frustration as though he could make it roll further through sheer force of will.  It ran out momentum just before contacting the red pack.

"Foul and a miss.  Four to me."   His voice was thick in his own ears, but if Sherlock heard the catch in it, he didn't let on.  "Again."

Sherlock was imploding, now, his nerves showing in the tightness of his back, the stiffness in his elbow.  He came in even shallower than before, dropping the cue ball into the side pocket across from the blue.

"Foul and a miss.  Four."  Mycroft took a sip of brandy to conceal his jubilation.  Technically, he could take over as striker and place the white ball anywhere inside the D, but it was much more amusing to sit back and nurse his drink and watch his brother beat himself.  "Again."

"Oh, for fuck's sake!"  Sherlock snapped.  "Just play the shot yourself.  There's a clear line between the brown and the yellow.  You could pocket the far red and then run the whole table like a drill.  That's what most people would do."

"I'm not most people, Sherlock."

Sherlock scowled, but walked around the table and fetched the white ball from the pocket.  Now that he was standing on the other side, facing Mycroft, he leaned forward and aimed his cue at the white from the opposite angle, having apparently admitted that the four-cushion escape was beyond his ability.  A sheen of sweat covered his upper lip, and his breathing was laboured.  The shirts Mycroft had purchased for Sherlock while he'd been in rehab had been meant for someone gaunter.  Tiny slivers of white skin peeked through the black, shiny cotton as Sherlock's body strained against the buttons.

Mycroft couldn't help but stare, hoping for the life of him that Sherlock was too focused on his shot to notice him looking.

Sherlock hit the ball thick, apparently no longer trying to avoid setting Mycroft up for a high break on his next visit.  All he had to do was rebound the white ball off of three cushions and up into any of the reds which made up the pyramid's base, but he got the angle almost comically wrong.  Not only did the cue ball fail to contact the base of the pyramid, it missed the line of reds along the left leg of the pyramid, too, sliding past them and kissing the pink.

Mycroft chuckled despite himself.  "Foul.  Six to me.  You realize you've scored twenty-two points for me, so far?"

"I can count, Mycroft."

"I can't remember ever having such a lead before visiting the table."

Sherlock nudged the pink back to its spot and snatched the cue ball from the table, wiping it clean on his shirt.  Mycroft was transfixed by the pale slice of belly exposed as his brother lifted his shirt tails.  Sherlock didn't bother to tuck them back in when he replaced the cue ball on its spot against the green.

Sherlock took a deep, shaking breath, and focused, bending forward, staring intently at the ball.  He brushed the errant curl and a droplet of sweat out of his eyes and took the cue in hand again, sliding it across his knuckles.  He looked down the table, and then over at Mycroft.

"I could make the shot if you'd stop staring at me."

Mycroft set down his brandy.  "I am not to blame for your inability to hit a red."

Sherlock stood up, tilting his cue vertical.  "This is why you're making me replay the shot, isn't it?  I pocketed the white.  You might have made a maximum break if you had taken over with the table in that position."

"You flatter me."

"At the very least, you would have clinched the frame.  But you didn't take it.  You would rather watch me than win."

"Now you're flattering yourself."

"I am not.  You've been staring at me all evening."

Mycroft felt his pulse elevating and forced himself to breathe more slowly to compensate.

"You're imagining things, Sherlock.  Perhaps your stint in rehab has made you especially sensitive to feeling as though you're being watched or judged."

Sherlock's nostrils flared.  "Don't try to fucking gaslight me, Mycroft!  Your pupils are dilated."  His voice dropped low, incredulous even as he made the deduction.  "You're aroused."

Blood flooded Mycroft's face; he cursed his ginger colouring.  He felt short of breath, corseted by the too-tight waistcoat.  "Sherlock, it's dark in here.  You've jumped to the wrong conclusion.  I assure you--"

Sherlock laid his cue on the table and strode around it towards Mycroft.  "Is it the situation?" he asked, unbuttoning his shirt, slowly exposing a white 'v' of flesh between panels of crisp, black cotton.  "Do you get off on humiliating people?  On ordering them around?"

Mycroft forgot his assurances when his brother loosed he final button and his shirt fell open.  Gooseflesh rose on Sherlock's skin, its white expanse broken by taut, oval nipples, which he teased with his own fingers.  Mycroft felt his cock growing treacherously heavy between his thighs.  He ought to say something, to admonish Sherlock to put his clothes back on, but his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth.

"Or is it me?"  Sherlock unfastened his cuffs and took another step towards Mycroft, letting his shirt flutter to the floor behind him.

Mycroft swallowed at the sight of his lean musculature, more toned than he would have expected.

"Everyone works out in rehab."  Sherlock said by way of explanation.  He removed his belt and twisted it thoughtfully in his hands before setting it behind him on the table.  "It's both, isn't it?  You enjoy dominating people in general, but you particularly enjoy dominating me."

Sherlock toed off his shoes (he'd apparently fallen victim to this horrid trend of wearing dress shoes without socks) then dropped his trousers and briefs together, revealing his half-hard cock beginning to stir in its nest of curls.  He kept his eyes locked on Mycroft's.

"Sherlock," Mycroft began, finding his voice at last--and then his brother sank to his knees, and his words deserted him.

"Is this what you wanted?" Sherlock asked.

Mycroft's eyes widened as he took in Sherlock's perfect posture--back straight, hands resting neatly on top of his thighs--spoiled only by the haughty tilt of his head.  Sherlock's erection was at full mast, now, rosy with blood.

"No," he whispered, startled by the harshness of his croak in his own ears.

"How about this?"  Sherlock shifted onto all fours, head still held high with a smirk on his face, and crawled towards him, settling his head against Mycroft's thigh.

He bit back a groan. There was no hiding his own erection, which strained against his trousers.  Sherlock put his mouth on him through the cloth, his breath hot against the wool, and Mycroft shuddered.  He wanted to seize Sherlock by the hair, free his aching cock from the confines of his Y-fronts, and shove his brother's head down on it.  It would serve him right if Mycroft came down his throat straight away.  Only the thought of when and how Sherlock had most likely learned how to suck cock stayed his hand.

"I'm not pulling your zip down with my teeth," Sherlock murmured, his deep voice vibrating Mycroft's bollocks.  "If you want me to suck you off, you need to open your own flies."

Mycroft took several deep breaths.  Still, his voice came out shaky and unconvincing.  "I don't want you to."

Sherlock begrudgingly removed his mouth from Mycroft's groin and sat back on his heels, but he cocked a skeptical eyebrow at Mycroft's tented trousers.  Mycroft remained still; any effort conceal his erection would just broadcast his fear to Sherlock, and he already felt entirely too much like a pinned animal exposing its vulnerable belly.

His brother licked his lips, which did nothing to alleviate the sensation.  "Your loss. I've been informed I have a decadent mouth."

Mycroft stared Sherlock's glistening lips, and believed him.

Sherlock rose to his feet like a drunkard and tottered to the billiards table.  He swept the nearly intact red pyramid and the black away with his arms, sending the balls rolling up the table and bouncing off the cushions in every direction.  Then he leaned across the baize, bracing himself on his forearms.

"But perhaps you were holding out for this?"  He arched his back to present his plush arse.  

Mycroft's breath caught.  It was certainly not the first time he'd been propositioned, but it was the first time anyone had put the offer on the table quite so literally.  He felt pulled up from his seat as though by an unseen hand and moved to stand behind Sherlock.  He ran his thumb down the nubs of his brother's spine, letting his fingers come to rest at the top of his sacrum.

Sherlock shivered beneath him, tension bunching between his shoulders.  He tucked his tailbone up and away from Mycroft and squeezed his glutes together.  

Mycroft withdrew his hand, pulse quickening.  "You haven't done this before, have you?"

Sherlock turned onto his side so he could glare over his shoulder at Mycroft.  "I assumed you'd deduced it and were just too big a prude to say anything, but in case you missed it, before you forced me into rehab, I was sucking cock for smack.  So how about you dispense with any romantic notions about my supposed virginity."

Mycroft winced.  "Sherlock, I'm not naive, and I'm not implying you are, either.  But I suspect there's a reason why you haven't done this before.  It's intimate, allowing someone inside your body.  And your first time should be with …" He realized he couldn't imagine Sherlock with anyone else without his chest aching.  "Not me," he finished instead.   "You're my brother, Sherlock."

"So?  It's not as though you can impregnate me."

"That's hardly the point."

Sherlock rolled the rest of the way over and hauled himself onto the table with his arms, slithering backwards until his arse was over the cushion.  He let his legs dangle from the edge of the table and reclined onto his elbows.  "What exactly is the point, then, Mycroft?  That it violates social mores?  After all the morally dubious things you've done, _this_ is where you're going to draw the line?"

"I am not going to bugger you over a billiards table, Sherlock."

Sherlock's nostrils flared.  "But you want to.  You are a self-righteous, hypocritical, arrogant prig."

"And you're a spoiled, ungrateful, junkie trick."

His brother's eyes widened.

"I'm sorry, that was--"

"True," Sherlock interrupted.

Mycroft stared at him, dumbstruck.

"I admitted it, didn't I?" Sherlock whispered.

He leaned in and brought his hand to Sherlock's face, his heart breaking as his brother tilted up his chin so Mycroft could look at him.  "It's not, Sherlock.  It's really not, and I shouldn't have said it."

Sherlock pulled his chin away and dropped his eyes.

"You don't actually want me, Sherlock."

He snorted.

"You may think you do.  Certainly you enjoy knowing that I want you--and I do.  But this," he gestured to Sherlock's sprawling, naked body on the table.  "It feels like you're trying to ..."

"Pimp myself?"

He nodded.

Sherlock took a deep breath, curling his abdominals up until he was sitting at the edge of the table.  "You're right about me not having done this before.  I almost did, once, for triple money.  I changed my mind once my face was up against a brick wall in an alley."

Mycroft kept his expression neutral.

"He ...  I broke his wrist and forefinger."  He met Mycroft's eyes defiantly.  "I'm not an innocent, Mycroft.  I want this.  And I want it to be with you."

Mycroft's mouth went dry, and his mind was torn with conflicting thoughts.  He wanted to pull Sherlock into his arms.  He wanted to track down the man who had hurt his brother and kill him.  A dark, doubting part of himself whispered that Sherlock wanted him to want these things.  He wanted to trust Sherlock, and to believe Sherlock trusted him in turn.  He wanted--  

Mycroft lifted Sherlock's chin again and pressed his closed lips to his brother's.  The kiss was soft, delicate, though the bulge in his trousers made it anything but chaste.  Sherlock gasped and opened his mouth, and Mycroft pulled away.  He put a hand on Sherlock's chest when he tried to follow.

"Let me watch you touch yourself," he told Sherlock.  "It will be enough."

Sherlock opened his mouth as though to protest, then closed it, a slow smile creeping up the corners of his mouth.  He stood up, stepping into Mycroft's space, and sauntered back to the cabinet, retrieving the bottle of Q-slick.  He carried it onto the table with him, reclining back on one elbow with his legs hanging over the cushion.  Then he popped the cap open and poured a generous dollop into his hand.

Mycroft snatched the bottle from Sherlock's fingers.  "Do you even know what's in this?"

"Dimethiconol," said Sherlock, as Mycroft read the label.  "Silicone based polymer also used in cosmetics.  Perfectly safe."  He took it back, secured the cap, and plopped it on the baize beside him.  Then he spread his thighs, tucking his legs back, and slid his slicked fingers down the length of his cock, up behind his bollocks, and finally circled them around his hole.

Mycroft moaned and dropped to his knees, wanting to put his mouth on Sherlock, but contenting himself with laying a palm on his brother's thigh as he watched his slender fingers dip in and out of his body.  He fumbled to loosen his trouser button and flies one-handed, and slid his palm down the front of his pants without freeing his cock.  It felt important that Sherlock not be able to see him working his foreskin back and forth over his glans, even though of course he knew what Mycroft was doing.  He nudged Sherlock with his other hand, and his brother indulged him, splaying his legs wide.  Sherlock had two fingers in past the second knuckle, which he twisted inside himself and scissored open.  When he added another slick finger between the first two and gently pried the ring of muscle apart, Mycroft gasped aloud, squeezing the flesh of Sherlock's thigh.  Sherlock writhed under his hand, working his fingers deeper, hooking them up inside as he reached for his prostate with his right hand and stroked himself with his left.  It was clear that he had experience pleasuring himself this way and knew what he wanted.

Mycroft's glutes were beginning to burn, and he stood up to rest his legs and look at Sherlock's face.  A flush crept down Sherlock's ears to his chest when his eyes, dark and hooded with desire, met Mycroft's.  The brief flicker of embarrassment on his face was replaced with fierce determination when, without breaking eye contact, Sherlock reached behind him and grabbed the cue he'd left on the table.

Mycroft's hand slowed to a stop inside his pants as Sherlock hefted the cue upwards.  "Sherlock, what are you …"

Sherlock smiled coyly, and unscrewed the join between butt and shaft with lube-slicked fingers.

Mycroft cringed as the shaft clattered against the baize topped slate.

Sherlock turned the butt over in his fingers, appraising.

"I'm reasonably certain that's unsafe for insertion."

Sherlock ran the ball of his thumb over the mother of pearl Britannia emblem on the flat side of the butt.  "The square side of the cross-section is intimidating, it's true."  Sherlock rolled across the table, long fingers reaching up underneath the cushion and returning, triumphant, wrapped around the six inch mini-butt extension.  "The mini-butt, however … "  He turned the cylinder in his fingers.

"Is short enough to disappear inside you."

Sherlock rolled his eyes.  "And, conveniently, is designed to be attached to the cue."  He screwed the extension into the butt and applied a copious amount of polish.

"Still," Mycroft protested, "wood is--"

"Solid ebony.  Burnished to the point the pores are sealed.  Completely smooth.  Don't be so missish, Mycroft."

Sherlock reclined on the table, raised his legs up and back, and poured lubricant directly onto his hole.

Between the cue butt and the extension, Sherlock's improvised sex toy was twenty inches long.  In spite of his misgivings, Mycroft was curious how much of it he could take.

"Not more than the first five inches or so, I should think," murmured Sherlock, following his train of thought.  He set the bottle of polish down and held one leg back with his left hand as he angled the extension towards himself with his right.  He met Mycroft's gaze, took a deep breath, and exhaled hard as he breached himself.

Mycroft stared, transfixed, as Sherlock slid the wood into his body.  Heat rose to the surface of his skin, and he loosened his necktie with his left hand and released his top button, pulling his collar away from his throat.

Sherlock's erection had flagged at the moment of penetration, but was reviving, rising proudly up from his groin.  His bollocks jounced against each other inside their sack of flesh as he worked the extension in and out of his arse.  The butt was ebony spliced with maple, black on cream, perfectly matched to Sherlock's own colouring.  Mycroft pushed his pants down, not caring anymore if Sherlock saw, and tugged harder at his cock, timing his own strokes in synchrony with his brother's.

"You're depraved.  I don't know if I've ever seen anything more wanton."

Sherlock chuckled, low and deep in his throat, and angled the extension up, towards his prostate.  The long lines of his muscles, his lean quads and sculpted calves and slender, pointed toes, alternately tightened and then relaxed again as he fucked himself.  Mycroft fought the urge to reach for Sherlock's foot, to knead his thumb into the arch and lick up the length of it.  Sherlock cocked his head, a knowing smile on his face, and released his thigh in order to touch his cock, rolling the foreskin over his glans, fingers moving lightly over his frenulum.  "Is it still enough for you, watching?"

It wasn't.  It had to be.  "Yes."  

Sherlock drew the cue all the way out, bemoaning his bereavement.  The ring of his sphincter remained open, reddened and glistening like a mouth awaiting a kiss.  "It's not enough for me."

Mycroft's breath caught in his chest.

Sherlock set the butt on the table and reached out to Mycroft with his freed hand.  Mycroft closed his fingers around his brother's, indulging his desire to bring them to his lips.  Sherlock made a faint, needy sound, and Mycroft acquiesced, sucking his brother's fingertips into his mouth one by one.

"Please," Sherlock groaned, arching up off the table.

Mycroft moved closer, standing between Sherlock's open legs, and dipped two of the fingers of his other hand inside his brother's stretched, slick entrance, curling them upwards to find his prostate, mimicking Sherlock's rhythm from before.

Sherlock shook his head.  "Not like that, Mycroft."

He gently extracted his fingers, tilting his head, expectant.

Sherlock pushed himself up on his elbows and fixed his eyes on Mycroft's.  "Fuck me."

"We don't have condoms."  He had some in his bedroom upstairs, but Sherlock didn't need to know that.  There was no reason to carry this madness further than this room, this night.

Sherlock wrinkled his nose.  "Don't pretend you haven't read my supposedly confidential medical records from the clinic.  I tested negative for everything when I went in, and negative when I got out."

"You don't know my status."

"Please.  You wouldn't fuck anyone who didn't pass an STI panel, a background check, and a polygraph."

Mycroft smiled despite himself.  "Polygraphs are notoriously unreliable."

"More importantly, if you thought you could give me anything, you wouldn't be contemplating fucking me."  He thrust his chin up, looking at Mycroft.  "I trust you."

Desire pulled at his groin so hard his belly cramped with it.  "With your life?"

Sherlock's brows knit together and his mouth softened, an expression of genuine bafflement on his face.  He sat up the rest of the way and scooted closer to Mycroft.  "I called you when I was dying."  He leg go of Mycroft's fingers and placed his hand behind Mycroft's neck.

Sherlock's text alert had awakened him at three in the morning:

_Come at once._

Mycroft tentatively placed his hands on Sherlock's shoulders, recalling his brother's dead weight in his arms as he'd carried him down the stairs.  "I remember."

"So do I.  I knew you'd come for me, then.  I know you'll take care of me, now.  I trust you, Mycroft."  Sherlock looked up at him.  "I _want_ you.  Please."

Mycroft slumped forward against Sherlock, pressing their foreheads together.  He'd had practice denying himself where Sherlock was concerned.  But he struggled to deny his brother anything, and if this was something Sherlock wanted …

He tried to remind himself that Sherlock didn't really want him.  He was bored; Mycroft was a distraction to him, nothing more.  And Sherlock--

Sherlock was breathing his air.  Sherlock was tilting his mouth into his.  Sherlock would move on, would direct his affection and desire towards more appropriate objects, whereas Mycroft--

Mycroft tightened his fingers in Sherlock's hair, pulling him back.  He looked into his brother's blinking, questioning eyes, and he knew that Sherlock would break him.

"Yes."

Sherlock's features softened in shock and the closest thing Mycroft had seen in years to gratitude.

Mycroft shivered.  It was too late to recant.  Things had already changed between them.  The time to stop had been before he'd tasted Sherlock's lips, before he'd had his fingers inside him.  "Yes," he said again.  "All right."

He disengaged from Sherlock and picked up the bottle of polish, pouring some into his hand.  It was tackier and thinner than he might have liked for anal, but Sherlock seemed to have managed the cue butt well enough.  He lifted his shirt tails up out of the way and slicked the head of his cock, then poured some directly into Sherlock for good measure.

Sherlock undulated his hips on the table and reached out to him again.

"Soon," he promised.

He dropped the bottle into the corner pocket to keep it from rolling anywhere and took Sherlock's hand in his, interlacing their fingers as though to dance with him.  Sherlock hooked the leg he'd been holding up around Mycroft's back, and Mycroft tucked his arm up and under his brother's knee.  He briefly kissed Sherlock's knuckles, then turned his attention to his other hand as he grasped his cock and lined them up.  Sherlock curled his head and torso up, abdominals contracting, neck craning forward so he could watch.  Mycroft had never understood how a man as lean as Sherlock managed to have multiple chins, but the imperfection gladdened him.  It made him seem less fey and more human.

If he allowed himself to realize that he was about to fuck his brother, he was either going to spill immediately or lose his erection.  So he emptied his mind, focusing only on his breath leaving his lungs and his blood thrumming in his cock and veins, and canted his hips forward.

The pressure of Sherlock's muscles clenching around him, the way his limbs quivered beneath him, made Mycroft so aroused that his own legs began to tremble.  He leaned forward, still holding Sherlock's hand, and steadied himself against the table, pinning Sherlock's wrist to the baize.  He stayed still until he felt the warmth coiled in his groin recede back from the point of no return.  Sherlock's lips were moist and parted, his breathing at once heavy and shallow.  His fingers, entwined with Mycroft's, clamped against his knuckles to the point of pain, and the nail beds were white.

"Are you alright?" Mycroft asked.

Sherlock nodded, too far gone to speak.

Mycroft tried to move back, but Sherlock's thighs clenched against him so tightly he almost couldn't move.  He rolled his hips slowly, more stirring than thrusting, and Sherlock groaned and clenched his eyes shut.

Mycroft paused, unsure if Sherlock's reaction was one of pleasure or pain.

His brother's eyes opened, all wild whites and black, blown pupils.  "You're _in_ me."

Mycroft went still.  "Do you want me to pull out?"

"God, no."  Sherlock flexed his muscles experimentally, and Mycroft's knees buckled.  "I just … didn't think you'd actually do it."

Mycroft smirked, happy to dispel some of the unbearable intimacy in the room.  "Well, let that be a lesson to you.  If you bluff, I might just call it."

Sherlock rolled his eyes.  "Stop gloating and fuck me."

Mycroft released Sherlock's fingers so he could get both of his arms under Sherlock's legs for better leverage, and did.

Sherlock braced himself with both arms on the table, arching his hips up to meet Mycroft's.  After a few moments of awkwardness where Mycroft struggled to avoid shoving Sherlock into the slate, while Sherlock fought him, apparently intent on impaling himself, they fell into a desperate, grinding, rocking rhythm.  Mycroft worried less about injuring Sherlock if he didn't slam into him, and Sherlock seemed insistent Mycroft not pull completely out of him.  The slow, frantic friction between them appeared to be an acceptable compromise.

Their torsos were tight together; Mycroft's shirt was wrinkled and sweat-soaked beyond salvation, and Sherlock had worked his trousers far enough down his hips that he could knead at Mycroft's bare arse with his heels.  Mycroft planted his forearms on either side of Sherlock's face, letting his lips hover just above his brother's.  Sherlock lifted his head up off the table and sucked Mycroft's lower lip, pulling him into a kiss.  Sherlock tasted like youth and sin and brandy, and Mycroft dipped his tongue into his mouth, letting Sherlock lick and and nip and control the kiss from beneath him.  It surprised him more that he was snogging his brother than screwing him.  He'd imagined, when he'd first entered Sherlock, that it would be quick and dirty, a few furtive thrusts before they spilled their shame on each other.  Instead, he felt them both wanting to linger, to wallow in the other's scent and taste and touch.  He consumed Sherlock, and was consumed by him.

Sherlock began to groan rhythmically, tightening his legs around Mycroft with every thrust, and that was good, because Mycroft was teetering on the verge of orgasm, gripping the edge with his toes like a rock climber on a sheer face.  He shifted his weight to his left arm so he could work his right between them, and Sherlock let out a stream of obscenities and threw his head back, eyes clenched shut.  At the sight of Sherlock's arched neck, of his lean chest, flushed and heaving, Mycroft drove his hips home, fucking him into the table, concern for bruises and friction burns forgotten.  He felt Sherlock pulsing hot and wet into his hand, and cupped his palm over his brother's cock in a futile attempt to protect the baize.  Sherlock's arse and thighs clenched around him, and his legs melted from the molten heat flowing out of him and into his brother.  He felt Sherlock's name on his lips, but the sound was drowned beneath his heartbeat.

 

* * *

 

 

Mycroft came to sprawled across Sherlock, his sticky palm still between them, breathless and stupidly hot beneath the layers of sweat-soaked clothing clinging to his skin.  He struggled to push himself up with the forearm still planted on the table.  Sherlock looked up at him and licked his lips.  A trace of stubble burn reddened his chin.  Awareness of what they'd done washed over him like the waters of a plunge pool after a stint in a sauna, and he staggered backward away from his brother.

Sherlock sighed, staring up at the ceiling.  "That was ...."

Wonderful.  Glorious.  Better than any sex he'd ever had or was likely to have again.  "A mistake," Mycroft finished.

Sherlock turned sideways on the baize, staring at him.  "Why?"

_Because I'm in love with you.  Because I want to be with you, and I can't be._

"I was hardly vestal before this, and I knew what I was doing.  I'm an adult, Mycroft."

Sherlock might think so.  Mycroft didn't. Which was the crux of it, really.

He sighed.  "Because I'm older.  Because you should be able to look up to me and trust me to look after you."  He said instead, opening himself to the anticipated mockery.

"I wouldn't have thought this was a revelation to you, Mycroft, but I haven't looked up to you since I was twelve, and I don't need looking after."

Both lies.  Mycroft let them slide.  Lies were preferable to the terrible, terrifying honesty that had been between them before.

Sherlock struggled up into a seated position and sulked.  His sweaty hair, which stuck out in every direction, in combination with his pouting lips, reminded Mycroft of an angry cat that had been forcibly washed and then towel dried.

"Pants," Sherlock demanded.

Mycroft bent down and lifted the black briefs from the floor with his clean hand.  Sherlock swiped them from his fingers and mopped his stomach.  Mycroft lifted his shirt and wiped his palm on his vest.  His hand had blocked the worst of the mess, but there were still telltale drops splattered across the baize.  He'd set to cleaning them tomorrow.

Sherlock dropped the soiled cloth to the floor and stood up, making an elaborate show of stretching a kink out of his neck.  He gathered his trousers from the floor and pulled them on, tucking in his cock, still half hard, inside.  The outline was starkly visible through his trouser leg.  Mycroft tore his gaze away and gathered up his brother's shirt.  Sherlock threw it over his shoulders and left it unbuttoned.  He wriggled his feet into his shoes without lacing them.

"I'm going to go upstairs and shower," said Sherlock.

He nodded.

"I'll leave the door open, if you want to join me."

Mycroft sighed.  "Sherlock--"

"Shut up, Mycroft."

He did.

Sherlock paused, considering.  "Does that make it easier for you?"

"Make what easier?"

"If I'm the one giving the orders.  If you can tell yourself you're just doing what I ask you to."

An unholy tingle shivered its way up from the base of his spine.  "Sherlock, this is hardly--"

His brother pressed a finger to Mycroft's lips.  "I wanted it.  I enjoyed it.  I want to do it again."  Sherlock stepped into his space, breathing his air again, and somehow it was even more intimate than when Mycroft had been inside of him.  "Next time," he whispered, "I'm going to fuck _you_."

His throat was so tight he had to breathe through his nose for a few moments before he could speak.  "Sherlock, I've told you, there's not going to be a next time.  This was an isolated incident.  It's not going to happen again."

Sherlock scoffed.  "Please.  You're snookered, Mycroft.  You'll make a show of trying to escape, but you'll foul and foul, because deep down, you want me to win."  He slid a hand behind Mycroft's head and kissed him full on the mouth.  Mycroft stood, stunned, unsure what to do with his hands.  He permitted Sherlock's to plunder his palate, and found himself leaning into the kiss as his brother pulled away.

Sherlock smirked and turned his back to him, striding confidently from the room and closing the heavy oak door behind him.  Mycroft sank to his knees in front of the table, and waited until his pounding pulse returned to normal.  Than he scooped up the cotton briefs Sherlock had left on the floor.  Even though he was confident his brother had left them there just to goad him into doing it, he brought them to his nose and inhaled.  He shivered.  He should keep them.  Sherlock wanted him to keep them.  He should save the memories, guilt-soaked though they were, and remember that just once, he'd had his brother's legs around him, had covered Sherlock's mouth with his.  He most definitely should not stand and walk up the stairs with the briefs in hand on the transparent pretext of returning them.

He made his way up the stairs to the sitting room, and then up another flight to the top floor, walking in a daze down the long hallway past the guest bedroom and into his own, following the sound of running water.  He walked past his bed towards the en-suite.  Sherlock had, true to his word, left the door open.  Tendrils of steam snaked their way out from the shower.  His brother's pale figure was partially obscured by the frosted glass, but he could follow the movements of his silhouette as he slid back the panel.  Water ran in rivulets down his naked skin, and his too-long hair was soaked straight, plastered to his ears and forehead.  He should have looked ridiculous, but the sharp angles of his thin body and his chiseled cheeks made him fierce, feral.  The gleam in his eyes when they settled on Mycroft was predatory.  The heat of the water had given a blush to Sherlock's skin, and it deepened as Mycroft's gaze slid down his torso and between his legs.

Mycroft threw the pants onto the floor.  There was no point in telling a lie neither of them would believe.  Instead he tossed his loosened tie after them and began unbuttoning his waistcoat.

Sherlock beamed, harsh expression shattered by his puckish smile.  His cock began to stir as he watched Mycroft remove his waistcoat and start unbuttoning his shirt.  That was flattering and intimidating at the same time; there was no way he was going to be able to match his brother's youthful refractory period.  Though he supposed, for what Sherlock had asked him for, it wasn't strictly necessary.  It was his turn to flush.  He tried to hide it by turning his back and dropping his trousers.  He peeled his socks off as well, buying time to regain his composure before taking off his pants.

He turned to find Sherlock triumphant, his face dazzling as he extended his arm to Mycroft.  He took his brother's hand as he crossed the threshold into the shower.  The water sluiced down his back as Sherlock folded him into his arms.

"Four points to me," Sherlock murmured.

Mycroft decided the only way to get the smirk off his brother's face was to kiss him.

**Author's Note:**

> [Source for definition of "snooker"](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS551US552&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=define%3A%20snooker)
> 
> [Snooker Rules](http://www.billiardworld.com/snooker.html)
> 
> [Glossary of Cue Sport Terms](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_cue_sports_terms)
> 
>  
> 
> So, as I don't know enough about Snooker to construct an entire frame from scratch in my head, the game Sherlock and Mycroft play is actually transcribed from [frames 18 and the beginning of frame 19 of the 2014 World Championship ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtNL8hNR4Cg)between Mark Selby and Ronnie O'Sullivan.  Which means you can watch it, if you so desire.  Sherlock is Mark and Mycroft is Ronnie.
> 
> If you just want to see what happens from when Sherlock begins to implode, that starts at about the 22 min mark.  Sherlock refuses to continue at about the 26 min mark.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, for the curious:
> 
> [Mycroft's cue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Unq2HON8s)
> 
> [Sherlock's cue and extensions, including the infamous "mini butt"](http://www.samleisure.co.uk/products-page/34-jointed-snooker-cues/britannia-steel-%C2%BE-black-african-gabon-ebony-zebreano-duplicate/)
> 
> [A cross rake rest](http://www.jamescrickmore.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/James3.jpg)
> 
> "[Q Slick Shaft Polish](http://www.cuestore.com/billiard_supplies/pool_cue_accessories/cue_shaft_maintenance/2/9117a)," which is actually a real product
> 
> Sometimes reality is crackier than fiction.  I suspect that actually its "quick drying" formula would make it unsuitable for lube, but I hope you can suspend disbelief with me and that it's less cringe inducing than most "fanfic lubes."
> 
>  
> 
>  


End file.
